Best of 2021

FICTION BOOK 

Piranesi – Susanna Clarke

Wolf of the Plains - Conn Iggulden

Bones of the Hill - Conn Iggulden

The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt (far superior to the film)

The World of Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

Honourable mention:

Arrival – Ted Chiang

Lord of the Bow - Conn Iggulden

POETRY

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes – Billy Collins

NON FICTION (MUSIC)

Never Met A Story I Didn't Like – Todd Snider

The Beatles and the Historians – Erin Torkelson Weber

A Dream About Lightning Bugs – Ben Folds

Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink – Elvis Costello

Honourable mention:

The Record Men: The Chess Brothers and the Birth of Rock Roll – Rich Cohen

 

NON FICTION (OTHER)

Born a Crime – Trevor Noah

Fathers, Sons, Blood - Harry Crews (essay in Classic Crews: A Reader)

FILM

 

Doctor Sleep (Director's Cut)

Free Guy (Disney +)

Dune (pt.1)

The French Dispatch

Spiderman: No Way Home

Honourable mention:

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

King Richard

BEST BAD FILM

Airport '79: The Concorde (Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_DT8BST4FY)

TV

Ted Lasso (season 1) (Apple TV)

Honourable mentions:

Ted Lasso (season 2) (Apple TV)

Call My Agent (seasons 1-3) (Netflix)

We Are Lady Parts (E4)

COMEDY SPECIAL

Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 – James Acaster (Vimeo)

Rory Scovel: Live Without Fear (Youtube)

Honourable mentions:

All James Acaster's specials (Netflix)

Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia (Netflix)

DOCUMENTARY

The Dawn Wall (Netflix)

The Black Godfather (Netflix)

Todd Snider: The Storyteller (Youtube)

Get Back (especially ep. 1) (Disney +)

Honourable mention:

The Movies That Made Us (Netflix)

ALBUM

War and Peace – Edwin Starr

Spike – Elvis Costello

The Complete Duets – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Billion Dollar Babies – Alice Cooper

 

SIX THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD WATCH/READ/LISTEN TO 

Piranesi – Susanna Clarke – utterly beguiling. Like nothing you've ever read before.

Airport '79: The Concorde (Youtube) – absolutely hilarious, defying all laws of physics, aerodynamics and character development.

Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 – James Acaster (Vimeo) – hilarious and structurally ingenious.

Ted Lasso (season 1) (Apple TV) – heart warming, funny, great characters. I would say “if you don't love it you're dead inside”, but this show will resurrect you anyway.

The Dawn Wall (Netflix) – An incredible life affirming story, of friendship amputation, terrorism, murder and rock climbing.

Get Back (ep. 1) (Disney +) - like watching Picasso at work (on his worst canvas). A privilege. And funny too.

Every Single Street - Nottingham #12

Nottingham Uni (above) Nottingham Canal below

Maverick X Peak (Long) 2021

Every Single Street - Nottingham #11 Pre-Halloween Science Run

Dead goose and pumpkin - just in time for Halloween

Creepy big mushrooms, and a big science bridge for a science guy

Inventor of Ibuprofen friend to the long distance runner

Even the graffiti taggers are science nerds

Sciencey buildings

Every Single Street - Nottingham #10

Every Single Street - Nottingham #9 In Memory

 

Best of 2020

 

Here's my fave things I discovered in 2020

 

Favourite Albums of 2020 

Oxymoron (Nik Kershaw)

Magnified (Rosie Abbott)

Too Hard to Please (Phil Grafton)

(Honourable mention: Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast)

Favourite books I read in 2020

The Colour Purple (Alice Walker)

In Search of Al Howie (Jared Beasley)

Educated (Tara Westover)

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (John Carreyrou)

An American Marriage (Tayari Jones)

(Honourable mention - Riding So High (Joe Goodden). I also reread the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and No Country for Old Men (twice! - hey remember lockdown?).

Four of my top five were recommended by my daughter

 

Favourite Films I watched in 2020

The Gentlemen

State of Play

Easy A

(watched them all twice!). Honourable mentions: Two Popes (netflix), Good Boys, Parasite, How to Build a Girl (prime), Mulan (disney+). Also watched The Big Lebowski (four times!) and The Nice Guys and Hot Fuzz (three times) never get old, man.

Favourite TV I watched in 2020

 

Broadchurch (all three seasons)

The Tick (prime) (season 2 is best)

Douglas - Hannah Gadsby (netflix)

Scott Bennett Live in Nottingham (youtube)

Honourable mention: The Umbrella Academy season 2 (netflix) and True Detective season 1 (for the fourth times!)